Begin your International Women’s Day celebrations with WOMEN of the WORLD.

Kiran Ahluwalia is a performer of vocal music. More precisely she is a performer of two distinct styles of vocal music from the Indian subcontinent, now India and Pakistan. Kiran sings ghazals and Punjabi folk songs.

Kiran is not only an interpreter of ghazals she is also a creator. As a composer Kiran is forging a new repertoire, putting words of Indo and Pakistani Canadian poets to her own musical compositions; music that is firmly rooted in the tradition, while taking a contemporary turn. She has become an organic part of the long line of singers who have preserved and reinvented the ghazal form over the last thousand years.

Ndidi Onukwulu has one of those voices that you can't forget. Whether she's out on the down-low with a melancholy moan, or chasing hellhounds with a strident tone, it's a voice that can stop you in your tracks. More than one knowledgeable listener has heard echoes of Billy Holiday's hue around the edges of her bluesy, seductive purr.

Ndidi's full-time guitarist Madagascar Slim -- a three-time Juno Award winner in his own right -- says her voice is outstanding. "I really got excited the first time I heard it," says Slim. "She really does have something special." Put the voice together with her graceful, casual stage presence, and it's easy to see how she lures people into her lair of song.

In just six short years, a groundbreaking throat singer from Nunavut, Tanya Tagaq Gillis, has brought an ancient Inuit vocal game to the heights of the experimental music scene. She’s collaborated with Bjork and the Kronos Quartet and toured with some of the world’s leading global artists.

Like Bjork, Tagaq makes music that is both decidedly unusual and universally appealing on a most visceral level. Her innovative, solo style of throat singing seeks to push the boundaries of emotion and to express the primitive instincts she believes still reside deep within our flesh. She describes her evolution over the past six years as a process of going deeper and deeper into her performance to the point where she virtually “leaves her body” and lets the expression take over.

Advance tickets available at the River Run Centre Box Office (35 Woolwich St.), Ground Floor Music (13 Quebec St.) and the CSA office (UC RM 274).

Call (519) 763-3000 to charge, or order on line.

a presentation of your Central Student Association, Kaleidoscope Promotions and The Guelph Jazz Festival